Legalizing Cannabis

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LE

That's the end of the road for Canada! Expect them mooses and bears to have a case of the munchies too.
In all seriousness, but progressive policies like those won't work in countries like the UK right? The UK is missing out on a great opportunity to plug those budget gaps through taxation on weed.

A question Leo. If a loved one of yours was suffering from a terminal cancer or other desperate condition and you read multiple cases of cannabis oils helping and even curing people, would you follow the law and conventional medical doctrine, watching your loved one suffer and die. Or would you source cannabis oils in the black market?

I suspect like so many from authoritarian enforcement backgrounds do, you’d do what is right for your loved one and source the oil. Just like the very senior police officer here who buys our oils for his wife’s cancer.

ADC

We have a working group at the HQ to try and come up with some sort of policy for DND and CAF members. I think they will go down the booze route - bottle to throttle 24 hrs type of thing. If you are stoned and unable to do your duty then same as being pissed.

The vibe I get here is it will be the biggest anti-climax in history. Most people who want to try it or do it are already doing it. We have several smoke shops in Ottawa and the biggest problem was them getting robbed as they had large amounts of cash on site because they could not process card payments. Each case no weed was taken, just the money.

There could be an uptick in tourists coming to try it and it will allow several growers here (I know of one guy who is looking to quickly expand his business around this) to get ahead of other countries as it becomes law in more countries.

All complaints to be sent to /dev/null

It came off in me hand chief!

If I had wanted to burn, collect sand in everything I own, overheat, run around, shoot things with something less than 4.5inch caliber, wear green/sand coloured baggy outfits, live more than 16m above Sea Level I would have joined the Army.

LE

A question Leo. If a loved one of yours was suffering from a terminal cancer or other desperate condition and you read multiple cases of cannabis oils helping and even curing people, would you follow the law and conventional medical doctrine, watching your loved one suffer and die. Or would you source cannabis oils in the black market?

I suspect like so many from authoritarian enforcement backgrounds do, you’d do what is right for your loved one and source the oil. Just like the very senior police officer here who buys our oils for his wife’s cancer.

LE

On the left is hemp oil. Here it can’t be more that 0.5% THC or CBD. At that level, it’s a great source of Omega 3 & 6 fatty acids; a great food source for vegans but stuff all use medicinally. Except that oil isn’t legal; it’s about 4% THC & 6% CBD which is better than Holland & Barrett’s CBD oil.

On the right is tincture of cannabis. It’s about 35% THC and 20% CBD. The demand is huge, not from dope heads but from generally mature people with chronic or life threatening conditions. Here, that kind of oil can only be prescribed by a doctor for the final stages of palliative care and there are very few doctors licenced to do so.

You can see from the graph that THC-A is carbohydrated at quite low temperatures but the THC released is negligible; you won’t get high. THC-A does not make you high; it has to be decarboxylated to THC to do so.

The amount of THC you get from cannabis de-carboxylation depends on three core factors; the temperature to which you heat the product and time you heat it for (the graph) and the THC-A content of the raw material.

Vape oils are made with cannabis buds so they are high in THC-A. Evaporating at relatively low temperatures will release enough THC to get you high. Leaf and stalk don’t contain enough THC-A to decarboxylate tonget you high at evaporation temperatures. Which is why E cigarette cartridges that contain leaf burn the leaf in a chamber.

Oils like Rick Simpson oils and the cold extraction tinctures we make are made with the whole plant. There’s no enough THC-A in the extraction to de-carboxylate into THC by evaporation. They don’t burn well either; not volatile enough.

LE

A question Leo. If a loved one of yours was suffering from a terminal cancer or other desperate condition and you read multiple cases of cannabis oils helping and even curing people, would you follow the law and conventional medical doctrine, watching your loved one suffer and die. Or would you source cannabis oils in the black market?

I suspect like so many from authoritarian enforcement backgrounds do, you’d do what is right for your loved one and source the oil. Just like the very senior police officer here who buys our oils for his wife’s cancer.

Is this the Nazi paratrooper question dressed up.? My mother did die from Cancer, she was on local clinicians treatment, and she was 84 years old. I was at home with her when she died. I am personally more worried that having had to visit the doctor, I had to lift her into the car and that I accidentaly harmed her by lifting. My father died of a stroke as a result of Alzheimers at the age of 76. I have explained the way I would have gone about obtaining proscribed substances, it was probably the way it worked in this case. Can we just stop pretending that life is supposed to be hunky dory and violets all the time.

Fortunately my Wife, children and grand children are robust. I am ,on a purely personal level, rather put off by all the tearful dramas.
I've had to deal with dead bodies as a Coroners officer, sudden deaths etc, I've seen people die from a belly full of coke. I have an aversion to most drugs,though I am prescribed blood thinning tablets as I am a stroke risk. Does that sound to you like I am not aware of the issues surrounding conventional medical doctrine?
Nope to me the issues are rather more like controlling the likes of Shipman and the woman doctor who'se been on the news today. I believe the law is right in this context and the means are there to deal with these issues. It's far more to do with the legitimising and Vague Hague freinds who don't want to bother paying for enforcement. It's almost as if making laws is no more than an academic exercise at the Oxford debate.

LE

Many of the smokers around here grow their own plants outdoors. They’ll get two crops a year so they’ll smoke just about the whole plant, but then they’re pretty much all unreconstructed hippies!

The big fan leaves are only about 2% THC I believe but burn them efficiently and you’ll carboxylate enough to get high. Which is why they are put in e cigarette cartridges. The sugar leaves are much higher; plenty of THC.

Essentially there are trichomes throughout the plant. In the hippie days, people smoked the roots!

LE

Many of the smokers around here grow their own plants outdoors. They’ll get two crops a year so they’ll smoke just about the whole plant, but then they’re pretty much all unreconstructed hippies!

The big fan leaves are only about 2% THC I believe but burn them efficiently and you’ll carboxylate enough to get high. Which is why they are put in e cigarette cartridges. The sugar leaves are much higher; plenty of THC.

Essentially there are trichomes throughout the plant. In the hippie days, people smoked the roots!

LE

We have a working group at the HQ to try and come up with some sort of policy for DND and CAF members. I think they will go down the booze route - bottle to throttle 24 hrs type of thing. If you are stoned and unable to do your duty then same as being pissed.

Are they also considering new dress regulations? I expect the bloke in the middle is sporting the new Chaplain's uniform. Beside him is the new officer's white tropical kit complete with big hat to tuck his dreds in to.

How can you know if somebody is under the influence of weed? I understand that sailors are now breathalysed before being issued with firearms. This can be done with a machine. Is there some sort of machine to detect cannabis or is a blood test required?

There could be an uptick in tourists coming to try it and it will allow several growers here (I know of one guy who is looking to quickly expand his business around this) to get ahead of other countries as it becomes law in more countries.

It will be interesting to see what happens. The Dutch briefly banned cross border tourists from buying weed in coffee shops near the country's land borders, citing anti-social behaviour by tourists. I think Americans tend to be better behaved than Europeans while under the influence but what will folks living in Canadian border towns think if bus loads of Yanks start arriving purely to get stoned?

ArRSe is the Hotel California - You can log-out any time you like, but you can never leave!

LE

Not at all; I fact the opposite really. It’s a question I’ve asked quite a few people who take the “authority” view.

The answer is often surprising. We have a customer here in Oz who’s brother is a very senior UK judge. OK, a Law Lord. He thinks the law is an ass. We also have a state minister and several very senior police officers. They are all, of course, compromised and potentially massive hypocrites.

IMHO Hague’s biggest error was in not clearly differentiating between medical cannabis and recreational drugs. They are fundamentally different things.

Medical cannabis was widely available pre-WW2 and wasn’t banned because of any issues. Rather it was banned because well connected, corrupt industrialists like Randolph Hurst and the duPonts wanted to ban hemp growing to protect their paper and nylon business. Nothing to do with it’s safety or properties.

And then the Johnson and Nixon administrations hammered recreational cannabis use to get at anti Vietnam protesting dope smoking hippies.

War Hero

There could be an uptick in tourists coming to try it and it will allow several growers here (I know of one guy who is looking to quickly expand his business around this) to get ahead of other countries as it becomes law in more countries.

There absolutely will be an influx of tourism for this and that will likely be the most serious long term consequence.
I expect that is the main reason that this got through, the amount of cash it will raise is incredible. Amsterdam has been *destroyed by tourism, the wrong kind of mass tourism and it is vital that this is controlled and not exploited when the inevitable happens.

*800k residents, 1 Million tourists, most of whom have come for a party. I am in the process of moving house because of it. The only sensible way to avoid it is for everyone to go ahead and legalise it but sadly the UK seems to be stuck in the Reefer Madness mentality.

LE

Are they also considering new dress regulations? I expect the bloke in the middle is sporting the new Chaplain's uniform. Beside him is the new officer's white tropical kit complete with big hat to tuck his dreds in to.

How can you know if somebody is under the influence of weed? I understand that sailors are now breathalysed before being issued with firearms. This can be done with a machine. Is there some sort of machine to detect cannabis or is a blood test required?

It will be interesting to see what happens. The Dutch briefly banned cross border tourists from buying weed in coffee shops near the country's land borders, citing anti-social behaviour by tourists. I think Americans tend to be better behaved than Europeans while under the influence but what will folks living in Canadian border towns think if bus loads of Yanks start arriving purely to get stoned?

LE

The ones from the border states would. I used to go across the bridge to Canada all the time in my college days while living in Ann Arbor as the drinking age there was lower than in the U.S. Ahh...the good ol days before 2007 when you didn't need a passport and the U.S. dollar was a lot more stronger against the loonie

LE

Not at all; I fact the opposite really. It’s a question I’ve asked quite a few people who take the “authority” view.

The answer is often surprising. We have a customer here in Oz who’s brother is a very senior UK judge. OK, a Law Lord. He thinks the law is an ass. We also have a state minister and several very senior police officers. They are all, of course, compromised and potentially massive hypocrites.

IMHO Hague’s biggest error was in not clearly differentiating between medical cannabis and recreational drugs. They are fundamentally different things.

Medical cannabis was widely available pre-WW2 and wasn’t banned because of any issues. Rather it was banned because well connected, corrupt industrialists like Randolph Hurst and the duPonts wanted to ban hemp growing to protect their paper and nylon business. Nothing to do with it’s safety or properties.

And then the Johnson and Nixon administrations hammered recreational cannabis use to get at anti Vietnam protesting dope smoking hippies.

The law is very frequently an ass ,but not in this case. MDA and CEMA are two bits of legislation which should be held up as the examples of good legislation. Simple, short and to the point. We no longer use Radium in toothpaste, the inclusion of Laudanum and cocaine derivatives has markedly reduced. Also hemp is still grown for hessian sacking.
The point about recreational drugs is that you shouldn't take them for your physical well being. Alcohol is frequently used as an alternative, but the distilling process is a purifiying one and the entire process is monitored.
The illicit drugs industry can't be trusted with that and the criminal gangs involved in fakery create an unregulated product.

The point about America always makes me angry. We are not America and somehow we are equating our experiences in Vietnam. You can't. We are not and haven't been conscripted since the 60's . The fact that students tend to kick over the traces is rather like saying that Parisian riots justify student riots

LE

LE

@LeoRoverman people take all sorts of plant extracts for their health benefits, many of them extracted in the same way as a cannabis oil. These don’t even sit in the complimentary medicine space. There’s very little control on therapeutic claims. Manufacturing processes are governed as foods, not as medicines. Many of them have quite nasty side effects if not taken correctly. Just look at the claims made for turmeric.

We also have over-the-counter medicines that can kill a dare addictive. Controls are near non-existent beyond manufacturing and retail.

Meanwhile Medicinal cannabis does not kill, isn’t addictive and can be made safely with basic food safety processes. The key active ingredients are actually synthesised by the body - research endo-cannabinoids. Yet it’s banned and placed in the same place category as heroin and cocaine.

The point about America is fundamental. It was the US government that drove through the Single Convention on the Use of Narcotic Drugs in 1961 and which drove through the addition. If marijuana during the Vietnam war. All counties which adhere to the convention are effectively adhering to reactionary, conservative US policy from the 60s.

I’ve got no axe to grind over legalising recreational marijuana. I’ve never tried it or any other drug and never will. I think the war has been lost; in truth it was never winnable; you can’t fight market forces. But there should be no war against “medical” marijuana or the consumption of acid form cannabinoids.

LE

@LeoRovermanpeople take all sorts of plant extracts for their health benefits, many of them extracted in the same way as a cannabis oil. These don’t even sit in the complimentary medicine space. There’s very little control on therapeutic claims. Manufacturing processes are governed as foods, not as medicines. Many of them have quite nasty side effects if not taken correctly. Just look at the claims made for turmeric.

We also have over-the-counter medicines that can kill a dare addictive. Controls are near non-existent beyond manufacturing and retail.

Meanwhile Medicinal cannabis does not kill, isn’t addictive and can be made safely with basic food safety processes. The key active ingredients are actually synthesised by the body - research endo-cannabinoids. Yet it’s banned and placed in the same place category as heroin and cocaine.

The point about America is fundamental. It was the US government that drove through the Single Convention on the Use of Narcotic Drugs in 1961 and which drove through the addition. If marijuana during the Vietnam war. All counties which adhere to the convention are effectively adhering to reactionary, conservative US policy from the 60s.

I’ve got no axe to grind over legalising recreational marijuana. I’ve never tried it or any other drug and never will. I think the war has been lost; in truth it was never winnable; you can’t fight market forces. But there should be no war against “medical” marijuana or the consumption of acid form cannabinoids.

Ain't it the truth, my Bold.
There are truths no matter where you look. However if we look on drugs as a war determined only by the ability of Criminal gangs to circumvent traditional controls then fine. But it's much more than that. It's about the countries and the millions who are affected, particularly central /south America in the production of said drug products. Guatamala,Brazil, Colombia, Honduras etc. Hundreds of thousands a short and brutal life, the gang warfare on the street's across the world. That doesn't include the extortion and money laundering that comes from it. If people want to justify recreational use, fine but it'll never be justified to me, it's just self centered in most cases. As I said before we are not America- we introduced Cocaine smuggling legislation in the 1920's so it predates the US legislation by some margin. Drugs smuggling is probably the largest industry in the world and it harms for profit. It's nearest is probably gambling and the shrieks of pain that come from that industry when the Government put a £2 limit was palpable. So if we give up on this war-we are actually letting down a hell of a lot of people.